While in Florida momentum has quickly shifted away from Newt Gingrich and to Mitt Romney, on the national level Gingrich is still going very strong. Two national polls out today both give Gingrich a solid nine point lead over Romney. From MSNBC on the new MSNBC/WSJ poll:

Gingrich leads Romney 37 percent to 28 percent nationally among registered Republicans likely to vote in the primaries; Rick Santorum is in third with 18 percent, and Ron Paul is fourth with 12 percent.

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Gingrich is also viewed as the most electable candidate by GOP primary voters. He leads Romney 2-to-1 among those who picked electability as mattering most to them in a candidate. He holds a narrow lead, 46-44 percent, among those who say views on issues matter most.

If the primary ends up just a Romney versus Gingrich contest, Gingrich’s lead would be even larger. The poll found (PDF) that in such a theoretical head-to-head match Gingrich would win 52 percent of the vote compared to Romney at 39 percent.

The Gallup national daily tracking poll also has Gingrich leading by nine. Gallup currently has it Gingrich 32 percent to Romney 24 percent. For roughly two weeks the poll has found Gingrich gaining steadily on Romney. There is no indication that Gingrich’s current drop in Florida is part of a national turn away from Gingrich.

Of course since presidential primaries are a contest-by-contest fight spread over months, national standing isn’t as important as the polling in the upcoming states. A win in one state often creates momentum going forward into the next contests. Still  a nine point lead in national polling is a substantial lead. I would not count out a candidate while that candidate is still the clear national front runner.

A new poll from Quinnipiac shows Mitt Romney’s lead over Gingrich in Florida has grown to nine points from just a two point lead earlier in the week. The size of the Romney lead in the Quinnipiac poll is nearly identical to the lead three other recent polls released yesterday found. From Quinnipiac:

Just four days before the nation’s first big-state presidential primary, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney opens up a 38 – 29 percent lead over former House Speaker Newt Gingrich among Republican likely voters in Florida, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Only 6 percent are undecided, but 32 percent say they might change their mind by Tuesday.

This compares to results of a January 25 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN- uh-pe-ack) University, showing Romney with 36 percent of likely primary voters to Gingrich’s 34 percent. Wednesday’s survey showed Gingrich ahead 40 – 34 percent among voters surveyed after the South Carolina primary.

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Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul has 14 percent of likely primary voters today, with 12 percent for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

What has happened in Florida is that well before the South Carolina primary Romney had a large lead in the state. Following Gingrich’s strong debate performances in South Carolina and his unexpectedly big win in that primary, almost all polls found that support for Gingrich experienced a very sharp but brief spike in Florida in the first few days of this week. This actually gave Gingrich the lead in the state for just a few days. Since that initial bump though support has again quickly shifted back to Romney. It is likely that Gingrich’s rather weak performance in the first debate this week had something to do with second change in momentum.

During the CNN debate last night, the second GOP debate this week, Gingrich’s performance was not amazing. There was little about the debate that would lead one to believe it could sharply swing momentum back in his direction. Barring a third huge swing in Florida in less than two weeks Romney appears to be in good shape in Florida. Of course given the incredibly volatile nature of this GOP primary that is a legitimate possibility that can’t be ruled out yet.

Brad DeLong points out that the downturn in the United Kingdom is now worse than during the Great Depression. In light of this information he calls for the Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrat party which is a minor partner in the coalition government with the Conservatives, to bring an end to the current government. From Delong:

Liberal Party leader Nick Clegg ought to end this farce today. He ought to tell Queen Elizabeth II Windsor that his party has no confidence in her government, and that his humble suggestion is that she ask Labour Party leader Ed Milliband to form a government.

It is true that if he does this his political career and his party’s electoral future are dog vomit. But his political career and his party’s political future is dog vomit anyway. At least defection from the ill-advised Conservative-Liberal coalition now would benefit his country.

Sadly this won’t happen because DeLong is over-simplifying the politics incentives involved.

It is true that right now Clegg and the Liberal Democrats’ political future is truly “dog vomit.” In abandoning the coalition with conservatives in the near future, the Liberal Democrats will likely be effectively dead for a century.

The issue is that the Liberal Democrats is a third-place party that’s always struggling because UK uses a first-past-the-post election system that heavily advantages the two most popular political parties. This type of unfair system, which the United States also uses, often allows one party to receive only a small plurality of the popular vote but win a huge majority of the seats in Parliament. For example, in the 2005 election Labour won 35.2% percent of the popular vote but got 55.2 percent of the seats.

Rarely does a third party ever even win enough seats to force one of the top two parties to agree to form a coalition government. Because of this type of election system so heavily disadvantages a third-place party, they are perpetually in danger and almost never have any power. If the Lib-Dems give up their current power as part of a coalition government now and force a new election, the party could likely be effectively destroyed. Sharing the blame for this terrible downturn would basically kill most third-place parties in this type of system.

This gives Lib-Dems two powerful incentives to hold on till the bitter end. First, this will probably be their last chance at having any power for decades so they may as well hold onto this power for as long as they can. And the second important reason is perhaps. While a new election now is sure death perhaps if they hold on until 2015, something unexpected will come along to save them. Three years is a long time, a lot could happen. While their political future in 2015 is likely going to “dog vomit,” there is at least a chance it won’t be.

This reminds me of an old parable that goes something like this:

A man was set to be executed the next day but told the King if he was given a year he could teach the king’s favorite horse to sing. The King decided to give him one year. If the horse sang he would set the man free, if not he would have the man killed. Later a fellow prisoners said, “are you crazy, you can’t keep that promise.” The mans answered “I know but I bought myself a year and a lot can happen in a year. Perhaps the king may die. Perhaps he will decide to pardon me anyway. Perhaps the horse may even learn how to sing. Regardless I now have another year and the chance that something will save me.”

The political incentives make the choice are simple. They can do something guaranteed to completely destroy their party now or they can hold onto power and the possibility something will come along to save them.